Focused Discussions (Asynchronous Session)
Mentoring Millennials: Preparing the Fourth Industrial Revolution Workforce through Knowledge Transfer View Digital Media
Focused Discussion Claudia Santin
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is about disruptive technologies and the need to prepare knowledge workers as their jobs are automated. According to the 2014 Deloitte Millennial Survey, by 2025, 75% of the workforce will be millennials. Two-thirds of the millennials surveyed said they would want to work for company offering good mentorship opportunities, and would be willing to work for less in order to do so. The 2019 Deloitte Millennial Survey shows Millennials valuing experience, and wanting learning and development opportunities and they want a relational approach (Zimmerman, 2016). In the Fourth Industrial Revolution, mentoring that focuses on knowledge transfer can be the key differential for retaining satisfied Millennials (Gwoke, 2019). Preparing millennials for the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous conditions presented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution changes the traditional model and modality of mentoring (Rodriguez & Rodrigues, 2015). It is essential for organizations to understand the why and how of mentoring the millennials who will comprise the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s workforce. The mentor’s primary goal remains to facilitate positive development of the mentee’s leadership strengths, emotional intelligence, communication skills, and team engagement (Santin, Hollywood, & Bloom, 2020), but now includes ensuring tacit and explicit personal and organizational knowledge transfer. Knowledge transfer mentoring could encompass different modalities in addition to one-on-one mentoring, including group and team mentoring (Vella, 2017). The mentoring framework of Blaess, Hollywood, Santin, and Bloom’s (2015) holistic mentoring model is suggested upon which to build competencies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution knowledge workers.
Faculty Development and Technological Innovation in Higher Education: Redesigning Digital Instruction View Digital Media
Focused Discussion Jubilee Dickson, Tadesse W Giorgis
There is a sense of urgency for many universities to come up with the appropriate technological innovation in response to the instructional challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic of COVID 19. Universities have been overwhelmed by the abrupt shift to a complete form of digital learning. This study focuses on how universities could redevelop a thorough digital learning strategy to increase their preparedness to these extraordinary circumstances. The traditional faculty development programs should be reexamined to incorporate new digital learning strategies. In addition to learning to use new programs or software, faculty are frequently being called on to remotely solve computer or information technology issues for their students, often having little computer knowledge themselves. In addition, some faculty members may actually be technology averse, preferring lecture halls and grading by paper over the digital versions of both. How can colleges and universities maintain the same level of academic rigor with implementing online learning when they have faculty members who are technology averse? Faculty across the world had to quickly become adept in both e-learning programs while also learning how to guide students through their own technology problems. The paradox of the situation is that faculty who are supposed to bring about technological innovation are resisting technological changes. This discussion adds to the conversation by examining ways to engage and encourage faculty to broaden their computer skills and abilities in order to effectively teach in an online environment.
Cultural Awareness in the Social Work World : How to Improve the Experiences of Social Workers of Color View Digital Media
Focused Discussion Mika Morikawa
Globalization has brought opportunities for profit, knowledge, diversity – and a profound complexity of our social issues. These are surfacing in our institutions, such as schools, healthcare, governments, and corporations. A stakeholder present in all of these environments is social workers. As the reach of globalization continues to expand, social workers and their ability to serve diverse constituents and their needs will become increasingly integral to public health and safety. However, when examining the social work workplace, two alarming characteristics become apparent. Firstly, a stark majority of 67.9% of social workers are white. The numbers speak to the social workplace being potentially marginalizing for people of color. Secondly, many social workers do not have an educational background in social work, and social work leadership are oftentimes professional managers rather than experts in the field. Therefore, social workers do not all have the same exposure to anti-racism curriculum. Considering the demographics of their clientele, it is crucial for social work leadership to exercise integrative, transformational leadership in their workplace in order to increase diverse representation amongst social workers, and thus improve their ability to serve their constituents. Informed by Young Yun Kim’s Cross-cultural adaptation model and Critical Race Theory in Critical Leadership, I have created a customizable curriculum guideline for social work leadership aimed at improving the experiences of social workers of color. The guideline is designed to critically examine their institution and leadership styles, and to take immediate action with both long and short-term sustainable implementations.
Changing Work: Empirical Insights from Employee Training in Telemedicine Context
Focused Discussion Nina Helander
Telemedicine is a growing area in healthcare, due to fast technological development offering suitable equipment and channel for distant medical consultation and care. Telemedicine includes a promise towards more cost-efficient care that is free of the limitations of physical distance and strict office hours. Many of the earlier studies of telemedicine have focused on the patient side, but there are fewer studies that have analyzed telecare from the viewpoint of the medical care giver, i.e. the physician. For the physicians telecare means a new kind of work context, as the medical work is carried out as distance work that is usually perceived as individual and even lonely work. Furthermore, this kind of new work environment set also new kinds of technical competence requirements and communication skills for the physicians. In order to support the physicians entering to telemedicine and telework, more emphasis should be put on the training and peer support that is provided to them. This study examines the training needs and perceptions and the peer support practices in telemedicine work context through an empirical study. The empirical study was carried out as structured interviews of physicians of medium sized private healthcare company. The results of the empirical study show that telemedicine as distant work can be built as pleasant work environment for the professionals, if proper training and peer support is provided. This needs, however, new kinds of training methods and special attention for technological issues and communication practices.
Access to Faith-Based Organizations: Through the Lens of Neurodivergent Youth and their Families View Digital Media
Focused Discussion Jessica Black
At least 20% of young people have a neurodevelopmental disability, and while religion and spirituality are embedded in social history, identity and culture the world over, spiritual and religious access in this population has been needs attention and rigorous scientific investigation. The neurodevelopmental disabilities serving as inclusion criteria are Autism Spectrum Disorder, Specific Learning Disorder, Intellectual Disability, Trisomy 21 and Cerebral Palsy. This study calls attention to the importance of breaking down the disciplinary silos of religion, organizational psychology, design thinking, and neuroscience to enhance the understanding of ways faith-based organizations can innovate and expand their programming and design to better respond to the religious experience in this population, a group of young people and families in need of adaptive coping and access to faith communities. This session serves as a call to broaden our methodological toolbox for using design thinking and culture to address organizational change in such institutions and pedagogies by responding to the questions : (1) What are the religious and spiritual beliefs and experiences of children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disabilities and those of their families? (2) To what extent are individual characteristics and ecological factors associated with and predictive of these beliefs and experiences, particularly as it relates to accessing faith as important to wider culture? (3) In what ways are faith leaders’ conceptualizations of religious and spiritual development in those with neurodevelopmental disabilities similar to or different from those of the young people and families, and what does this mean for access?
